Dover was briefly a port of call for transatlantic liners from 1904 to 1906. The Prince of Wales pier had been completed in 1902 and by 1904 a railway line had been laid and a small railway station and landing stage were ready to receive liners. Hamburg-Amerika Line commenced calling at Dover en route to New York from Hamburg and the Red Star Line similarly called in en route from Antwerp to New York, plus three smaller companies.
The first photo below shows the Deutschland berthed at the Prince of Wales and what is significant is that there is no sign of the southern breakwater, which was still under construction. This was to prove the downfall of the transatlantic services as by 1906 the southern breakwater was closing the gap with the Admiralty Pier extension to eventually form what would become the Western Entrance.
The Eastern Entrance was blocked off by a temporary viaduct carrying materials to construct the southern breakwater so the only point of entry was the formative Western Entrance, which was a disastrous design from the word go. The Admiralty Pier needed extending further out into the tidal stream but this was never done due to the expense. As a result, the tidal stream raced along the outside of the breakwaters with slack water inside and rendered the entry of large vessels extremely precarious.
Several collisions took place with the staging on the end of the nearly complete southern breakwater culminating in the Deutschland sustaining damage when she collided with the end of the Prince of Wales pier resulting in all her passengers having to be landed and transferred to Southampton. Hamburg-Amerika thereupon pulled out followed by most of the other traffic and Dover was henceforth only to play a minor role as a port of call until recent years.
There are some photos of liner traffic in the thirties and the associated DHB tender Lady Savile on this thread:
http://www.doverforum.com/letters/viewtopic.php?id=5896
I think.
